Weekend Poll: Desktop Hygiene

How do you organize your OS X desktop? That topic became a matter of much heat and passion in the TUAW back channels recently. That's my desktop you see up there.

It's not particularly pristine but I don't feel it's overly cluttered either. I keep links to all my current project folders on the desk, and store all my must-have utilities in an always-visible dock to the right. The background is plain white to support better screen shots, a big part of my daily work.

I've disabled spring-loaded items. Those are aliased folders at the bottom of the dock, so they open to real Finder windows. I have many apps set to Quickeys macros. Everything else I find with Spotlight.

Other TUAWians spoke passionately about the mouse-sensitive bottom dock, of well-organized Launchpads. Some of us like to use menu bar utilities to store quick-access items, allowing the desk to be perfectly clean.

And then there are some who don't worry about the perfect desktop. They just place whatever items they need wherever they need it. There's no snap-to-gridding for them!

What about you? What does your desktop look like? Are you a neat fetishist, a file slob or something in-between? What tools do you use to organize your workspace?

Join in this poll and then leave comments (and screenshots if you like -- upload to imgur.com or similar and include the URL) below.

How do you primarily organize your desktop?

I don't. Chaos is fine. Embrace it.

169 (15.4%)

I'm mostly a dock person.

378 (34.4%)

I stick with folders on the desktop.

201 (18.3%)

Mission control!

68 (6.2%)

I divide my desktop into labeled sections using custom backgrounds.

14 (1.3%)

I use third party desktop organization apps like Desktop Groups (http://kitestack.com)

7 (0.6%)

I use menu bar utilities like Unclutter (http://unclutterapp.com)

19 (1.7%)

I use several of these methods but I don't have a primary design choice.

141 (12.8%)

I have a completely different way of doing things. I'll tell you about it in the comments.